MBAs and the new intangibles

AUTHOR: Deborah Tarrant   DATE: 01.05.05   ISSUE 1, 2005

There are clear measurable indicators that set a business school apart from its competitors, starting with brand or reputation in a global context. The significance of MBA program rankings, published annually by a range of sources, cannot be – and rarely is – overlooked by students, recruiters and the schools themselves.

Rankings, however, barely scratch the surface of the true deliverables that prospective students and employers might expect and need to come from a world leading business school in 2005.

MBA graduates require an unprecedented agility and dynamism in their thinking.

ILLUSTRATION: Gregory Baldwin

Attention should be focussed on “all the things that happen underneath that help to achieve those outstanding rankings”, insists Sharyn Roberts, director of Awards Programs at Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), and many of the essentials in training exceptional managers and executives now deal with intangibles.

"MBA graduates need new skills -problem solving, communicating, thinking in creative, critical and analytical ways, and teamwork."

Whereas in the past business schools have focussed almost exclusively on delivering knowledge in functional areas to MBA students, the demand is changing. MBA graduates require an unprecedented agility and dynamism in their thinking to prepare them for the rigours and pace of management today. Providing them with the skills and practice to enable them to work cross-functionally and to be effective team players and leaders, at once, has become the endgame for management educators designing MBA courses.

Current trends in management education globally are focussing on attributes: problem solving, communicating, thinking in creative, critical and analytical ways, and teamwork.

Top grades in core subjects, such as finance, may excite MBA students and catch the recruiter’s eye, but more lateral qualities now are auguring for longer-term success, suggest both employers and educators.

"Typically, an MBA is undertaken at a turning point in a career."

From both the providers and the students’ perspectives, the real challenge is in finding the balance. “A well-structured MBA program should extend technical knowledge, critical management skills, and provide time for reflection and challenge using case studies and past and future work situations,” asserts Roberts.

Typically, an MBA is undertaken at a turning point in a career – between three to seven years into a career – and is most often required to transform an individual beyond specific technical expertise by providing a broader understanding of business and management skills. The students measure of success comes in increased career opportunities and higher remuneration.

“Constructive learning engages students and builds on their existing knowledge, skills and experiences.”

While the emphasis of an MBA is all about learning, it’s the way that learning process evolves that will deliver real outcomes in the contemporary workplace. “Constructive learning engages students and builds on their existing knowledge, skills and experiences, rather than the old blank slate method of teaching,” says Ann Wilson, educational program developer for AGSM. “There’s a corollary in the way educational and business trends have developed. Both focus on customer needs, and in the case of education, the customer is the student.”

Promoting and developing the new intangibles goes beyond structured learning, says Roberts, and some of the components can be built into MBA programs. Self-knowledge underpins the ability to learn and apply knowledge and skills, according to Roberts who has overseen the introduction of a transforming managerial skills course which students use at the outset of the program to explore their own preferences and behaviours and how they impact. “This forms an important building block to moving the group into team formation, creating highly effective teams and participating in teams, which underpins the way students go through the program.”

"Self-knowledge underpins the ability to learn and apply knowledge and skills."

Teamwork is integral to AGSM's MBA program, and learning also comes from a range of activities including comparative case studies and real management consultancy projects. However, the most potent aspect of MBA studies can be more discreet.

An effective MBA program is all about people. From Robert’s viewpoint, it’s “the energy that comes from the interaction both between the highly talented students we recruit, who are seeking to push their own knowledge boundaries, and with the faculty members who are passionate, committed teachers.”

AGSM has a strong record for research – 99 percent of faculty members hold PhDs.
Students are engaged by faculty members who are leaders in their fields, and setting the pace in particular disciplines.

This fusion of faculty who emanate from some the world’s leading educational institutions and are recognised internationally for their research, and as the authors of textbooks and papers that are used in the classroom, with students who are eager to develop management capabilities, fuels stimulation and fresh ideas, insists Roberts.

Students also bring a global perspective often through working for multinational corporations. Currently around 70 percent of enrolments in the full-time MBA at AGSM are international students, not to mention our students in the MBA program delivered in Hong Kong.

“It’s about focussing on the development of the individual and how the individual can make an impact.”

PHOTO: Taek Yang (Sharyn Roberts)

Active participation
Developing the required flexibility, speed and agility to manage, analyse, strategise and lead in the new business environment takes practice. Across AGSM’s programs, active and applied learning have become an emphasis.

“One of the plinths of our programs is to challenge students and demand their participation within the classroom, in teams and more broadly within the school,” says Roberts.

There are more than 45 MBA courses currently on offer in Australia, and more than 100 offered in Hong Kong. In a market crowded by providers seeking increasingly to deliver course modules online, the level of active participation by students in their learning has become an important differentiator for course selection.

Active participation is one of the steps ultimately towards enhancing the interface between MBAs and the end-user, the businesses that employ the graduates.

“A lot of the issues around the development of skills is the ability to test things out, to use them and to embed them in learning,” says Roberts. An often unexpected benefit of working actively with cohorts is the rare insights it allows into how other organizations work.

“Another aspect of a high degree of experiential learning is that the MBA program is a safe and supportive environment to take risks and test out ideas. Once graduates take these learnings into the workplace they have a confidence that makes them more effective.”

"Developing the required flexibility, speed and agility to manage, analyse, strategise and lead in the new business environment takes practice."

IMAGE: Gregory Baldwin

Our part-time students in Hong Kong and Australia are encouraged to use their own experiences as the basis for learning through authentic assessment.

“A sideline benefit from this is the ability to transfer their learning from the course directly into the workforce,” explains Ann Wilson.

Leadership
Much has been written and debated about the power of good leadership in the business community at large.

Current thinking takes leadership way beyond traditional hierarchical lines to the capacity of the individual to be a leader using their own initiative, – thinking independently yet functioning as an effective team member – and being high values-driven and principled.

Hot questions in management education surround how leadership capabilities develop: Can they be taught? Are they learned by experience or example? And which environments foster leadership qualities? MBA programs can address leadership issues on multiple fronts.

“It’s about focussing on the development of the individual and how the individual can make an impact,” explains Roberts. “In the classroom, this can mean highlighting some confronting business leadership and corporate governance questions, such as how to drive a profit and be socially responsible.” While aspects of leadership are explored within the AGSM MBA programs, learning about leadership becomes innate, demonstrated by faculty, leadership of the school itself and within the student body, as the programs attract people who have already shown high potential and strong leadership skills.

Leadership is arguably the most crucial, and ironically the most challenging, issue facing businesses and managers in the 21st century. The essence of the MBA programs and subsequent executive education is about spawning and growing leaders. Students are encouraged to form their own ideas on leadership often through using the case studies method to compare and explore the strategies that make one company succeed and another fail. “Thought provoking, reflective and introspective, these are designed to make people think about aspects of leadership and what’s important to them, rather than looking at models.”

The AGSM MBA AGSM has a strong reputation as a world-class institution. Over the last 5 years the School has been consistently rated the pre-eminent business school in Australia and one of the top schools in Asia. Australian and international students are attracted to AGSM because of its prestigious reputation and rankings. The School’s faculty is internationally acclaimed. The School’s mission is “to advance management knowledge and practice in Australia and its region”, including the Asia-Pacific area. AGSM students can study for an MBA in Sydney or Hong Kong, and several on-going research studies focus on the management, customer and marketing culture of Asian business. The Sydney teaching campuses are located close to the CBD and within easy reach of everything the city has to offer, including the world-famous Bondi Beach. Other campuses, largely dedicated to part-time MBA (Executive) study, are found in each of Australia’s capital cities. The Hong Kong students are taught in AGSM facilities in Central Hong Kong, the heart of the city's financial centre. AGSM researchers, students and participants in executive programs enjoy life at the heart of two of the world’s leading cities. Sydney, a cosmopolitan city of four million people, offers a rich cultural and social experience alongside academic studies. Australia's major commercial centre, main stock exchange, business media and most of the country's largest companies are located in Sydney. Hong Kong is a vibrant city of 7 million people with millions of visitors each year. Hong Kong is widely regarded as the gateway to China, one of the fastest growing economies in the world.